


just memories to hold

by tosca1390



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:21:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When the dust and light and smoke clears, the roof of Stark Tower is still intact. Jane can still feel the surge of power in her fingertips, thinks she could hear the songs of Asgard, feel the chill of Jotenheim, as the bridge built itself through Yggdrasil, Thor calling her name across realms.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>And then, a shadow falls over Jane. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	just memories to hold

**Author's Note:**

> Post-movie. I do what I want, basically. For Ari.

*

When the dust and light and smoke clears, the roof of Stark Tower is still intact. Jane, Bruce, Tony and Darcy are sprawled across it, coughing. Jane thinks she can hear sirens from afar, but they’re so high up that she isn’t positive it isn’t just her ears ringing. She can still feel the surge of power in her fingertips, thinks she could hear the songs of Asgard, feel the chill of Jotenheim, as the bridge built itself through Yggdrasil, Thor calling her name across realms. Across the roof from her, Tony is laughing. 

And then, a shadow falls over Jane. 

Jane blinks and rubs her eyes, staring up at – _oh_.

“ _Oh_ ,” she breathes, her heart caught in her throat. 

Thor, clad in the armor she remembers so vividly, his hair braided back from his face, reaches out with his hands to her, worry fighting with a smile on his face. “Jane,” he says, voice low. 

She lets him pull her up, and takes a step back. Her red plaid flannel is covered in dust and debris, her jeans torn – she can’t remember the last time she washed her hair. This wasn’t quite what she was hoping for in terms of reunions, if she’s totally honest. Passing a hand over her face, she meets his gaze. 

“Found you,” she says, when she can find her voice. 

Thor’s eyes crinkle with the smile growing on his mouth. He takes a step forward, and then hesitates. 

“I never doubted you would,” he says quietly. 

“This is the most precious thing I’ve seen since – well, since the last time,” Tony drawls, dusting himself off. The reactor is shuddering and smoking, but still whole and unbroken. Jane grins, mostly to herself; there can be repeat experiments. 

“The last time?” Darcy pipes up, hair windblown and a mess. “You weren’t there the last time.”

Tony waves a hand. “Semantics. I can imagine.”

“Oh god,” Darcy groans, her nose wrinkling. 

Thor, who hasn’t taken his eyes off of Jane since landing, finally turns to the others on the roof. “Tony, Bruce – good to see you once more,” he says courteously, bowing his head. 

Bruce just nods, wiping his glasses off on his shirt. Tony smirks, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re looking princely.”

“Thank you?” Thor replies, obviously flustered. 

“And what am I, chopped liver?” Darcy calls from behind him, stomping towards them. 

“Darcy, please,” Jane murmurs. 

Turning from Jane, Thor reaches out and takes Darcy’s hand between both of his. “A pleasure to see you again, Darcy Lewis,” he says with a slight smile. 

Mouth twitching, Darcy nods. “All right. You’re still cool.”

“God forbid if he wasn’t,” Jane mutters. 

Thor looks back at her, half caught in a laugh. Their eyes meet and she can’t speak, words and breath stuck in her throat. There is a flush crawling up her throat. 

“Okay then, you two sure have some catching up to do!” Darcy pipes up cheerfully. 

Tony clears his throat. “Yeah. And if I’m right, there’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. _something_ coming my way, so I’ve got some damage control to do,” he says with a smirk, nodding in the direction of the black helicopter making its way towards them through the hazy summer air. 

At that, Jane steps forward. Her arm brushes Thor’s, and she can’t help the shiver that runs up her spine. “It’s my project, Tony. I’ll take the blame.”

Waving her off, Tony laughs. “You’re under contract with me, Dr. Foster. If they’ve got issues, they can take them up with me and Pepper.”

“Frightening thought,” Darcy mutters. 

“Pepper more so than Tony,” Bruce comments lightly. 

Darcy grins at him, and Bruce’s face lightens just for a moment. “Oh, absolutely.”

“Jane,” Thor says softly. 

Wetting her lips, Jane turns back to him. Her fingertips tremble against her thighs. 

“I would – I would like to speak to you, if I may,” he says, all gallantries and politeness. But there is a heat in his blue gaze that she knows, that echoes the strange need in her belly. 

“Yeah,” she says at last. “My room?”

He nods, and takes her hand. She is dwarfed by him, but feels no threat. “Lead the way.”

*

Her room in Stark Tower, provided as a part of her contract, is bigger than the trailer in New Mexico and the little closet of a room S.H.I.E.L.D. shoved her into in Norway. It’s just as cluttered, though. 

“There is enough space for everything at last,” Thor says, lingering at the edges of her room. 

Jane stands between her bed ( _her bed oh shit what an idea this was_ ) and her desk, twisting her hands together in front of herself. “Just about. At least I can fit a real bed in here,” she jokes, and then winces. _Again, again with the bed_. 

He smiles, his gaze fixed on her. “I am glad your settings are becoming more comfortable. I imagine you did not like Norway.”

A lump rises in her throat. “Oh. Well, no. Not really.” She pauses for a moment, rocking back on her heels. “So – so you knew where I – we were?”

His mouth turns downward; it’s a strange look on his face. She doesn’t like it very much. “I asked. I wanted you know whether you were safe – Jane, I wanted to come to you –“

“Okay,” she murmurs, waving her hands in front of herself. “I just – I get it,” she says, but the sadness creeps into her voice. 

“Loki needed to be taken back, there was little time – “

“It’s okay,” she protests, blushing. She wishes she hadn’t brought it up at all. He was _Thor_ , and for as little as she knew him, she _knew_ him. At least she felt as if she did. 

He takes a few wide steps towards her, taking her hands in his large warm ones. “No, it isn’t. I wanted – “ he stops, his callused fingers curling around hers. “I did not want you to think I forgot our deal.”

She smiles faintly. “You didn’t seem like that kind of guy,” she says, and means it. Whatever Erik had said about the ways of gods and warriors, whatever she in her worst-case scenarios imagined – she had known that Thor would have come back if he had been able to. Even if only to say goodbye for good. 

A chill settles in her belly, heavy and unrelenting. _Who says that isn’t what he’s going to do right now?_

Bending over her, he rests his forehead against hers. His eyes are very blue, very close. “I am not.”

“Going to tell me about it?” she asks, cheeks warm. She can’t keep her eyes away from his mouth. 

“If you’d like, of course. Right in this moment?” he asks, voice roughing around the edges. 

Her fingers curl against his, tightly. Suddenly, her mouth feels too dry for words. 

“I – “ she stops, nose crinkling. There is a slight smile on his lips. “No,” she says at last, before rising onto her tiptoes and kissing him. She closes the distance between them as she did before; she always feels like she’s running into him pell-mell. 

His hands move to her waist, pulling her close. Mouth opening over hers, he murmurs her name and suddenly the need is too sharp to ignore. Her hands slide over the armor, searching for latches and buckles – she doesn’t know what to make of the armor, she’s never tried to undress a man like this before – this is _armor_ , for god’s sake – 

Thor laughs against her mouth, his hands under her torn and dirty flannel. He is just as warm as she remembers, a furnace of skin and calluses against her bare waist, her belly. 

“Maybe I should – “

“I’m a scientist, I’ve got this,” she breathes against his mouth, before pulling away. “But seriously, how do you get this on in the mornings?” she mutters, her fingers fumbling against the clasps and buckles at his shoulders and sides. 

Chuckling, he smoothes his large hands through her hair, over her shoulders. She shivers, frowning with the effort to concentrate on the metal before her, and not the man within. “Manservants.”

“Ah,” she mumbles, because _right_. God. Actual factual _god_ here. 

The room is very warm, suffocating against her skin. She would ask Jarvis to turn the heat down but she’s not sure she wants to garner anyone’s attention right now. Finally, she peels the heavy breastplate from his chest, and sets it down against the wall by the bed with a huff. “Good grief,” she mutters, pushing the hair from her face and turning to look at him. 

He made quick work of the other armor, and now stands before her in a tunic, dark red and loose at the shoulders and waist. She plucks nervously at the hem of her flannel, acutely aware of the dust and grime in her hair, under her nails. 

“This is awkward,” she says at last, laughing a little through the words. “I just – “

“Yes?” he asks, when she falls silent. “Jane, we need not do anything. I am content to be in the same room with you once more.”

“No, it’s not that,” she says quickly, because she thinks if she doesn’t get her hands on his bare skin soon, she’s going to go a little nuts (this also might be the lack of sleep talking, too). “I only – “

“I never expected you to wait,” he says after a moment, voice very quiet. He sounds almost skittish, if a god of thunder can sound so. “I have been gone for quite a long time, and the circumstance of my existence – “

“Thor,” she interrupts, her fingers curled in the cuffs of her flannel. The fabric is worn and soft under her fingertips. “There isn’t anyone else. I mean, I wasn’t _pining_ , or whatever, and I wanted to build the Einstein-Rosen bridge for more than just you, but – well – “

He laughs, and the sound fills her chest with warmth. “Jane, Jane,” he murmurs as he comes to her across the slick and modern room of Tony’s design. It’s a very different setting than her tiny trailer, which he barely could crouch in, or the roof of her old lab with the stars spread out above them and his map of the universe under her palms. But she still feels the same when his hands spread at her waist and he pulls her close into the breadth of his shoulders and chest; warm, wanted, _right_. 

“I have watched you, longed for you, cheered for you – there is nothing I want more than to be right here,” he says, voice low. 

Well. She’s done talking now, she decides.

Her arms slip around his shoulders and he braces her against his chest as she pulls herself up, kissing him once again. Her eyes fall shut and she opens her mouth immediately against his, tongue wet across the line of his bottom lip. His hands slip under her shirt, feeling out the curve of her waist, the lines of her ribs, his callused fingertips catching on her skin. She can feel the strength, the power thrumming under his skin. Their mouths catch and sink against one another’s, as he holds her up as if it takes nothing. 

“Why you were here so quickly?” she asks as he walks them towards the bed, their mouths close enough to feel the reverberation of his breath on her lips. 

“What do you mean?”

She drags her hands across the broad line of his shoulders, tangling in the loose thick fall of his hair. It’s longer than she remembers. “We didn’t think anyone would come through the first time. We just wanted to test it, and then maybe send me – but then you were here. Why?”

He sits down on the edge of her bed, and she curls into his lap, her knees pressing into the rumpled sheets, thighs resting at his hips. His hands pull at the hem of her shirt, and she raises her arms for him to finish the job. Her bare skin prickles into gooseflesh as the air hits it. The flannel shirt makes a soft plop of a sound as it hits the floor. 

“I – “ he begins, and then stops, hands hovering over her bare skin. His mouth turns at the corners, eyes darkening as they move over her. She flushes, feels it from her stomach to her throat and her cheeks. 

“You are beautiful,” he says at last, voice quite low. There’s a bright earnestness in his gaze that she can’t begin to handle at the moment. 

“Okay, okay,” she hurries as she leans into kiss him again, flustered. Her mouth jars against his as his hands slide over her bare back, fingers skimming the straps of her bra. She finds the belt for his tunic and tugs, loosening it from his shoulders. 

“You _are_ ,” he breathes against her mouth, his broad warm hands cupping her breasts through the cotton of her bra. 

She arches into his touch, her nails scratching lightly into the bare chest before her. The coarse springy hair catches at her fingertips as she scrapes lightly across his collarbone and down to his stomach. Her lips are tender to the touch; he moves his mouth to her jaw, the line of her throat, tongue easy and warm on her skin. There are goosebumps running all along her skin as she shifts in his lap, tipping her head back. It feels so _good_ to shut off her brain for a moment, to take the leap and just _be_ ; the bridge has been months of planning, of recalculating, of sleeplessness and too much coffee, of wondering whether it really mattered in the end. Now, she has the proof of the bridge, the successful test run, and Thor – Thor is here, here for now, and she can feel him solid under her hands. 

She’s taking the next few hours to breathe, and enjoy. 

Eventually, they end up stretched out the opposite way on her bed, his fingers between her thighs as she balances astride him, flushed and brow damp with sweat. He moves two fingers inside her, slick and easy, a thumb at her clit. She moans, her face near his throat as she leans over him.

“I was waiting,” he says, voice choked as she wraps a loose cuff of her hand around his dick, stroking slowly. 

She shudders out a sigh, teeth easy at the line of his jaw. “Waiting?”

His mouth catches her ear, through the thick curtain of her hair. “I would watch and wait at the broken gates. I would wait for Heimdall to tell me you had done it. I knew you would,” he says, low and ragged. His hair is loose from its braided-back style, gold and soft against her sheets. 

Something seizes in her chest. Jane shuts her eyes and moves against him, wet with anticipation and longing. Her lips tremble against the skin of his neck. “That’s good to know,” she says at last, at a loss. She thinks of the long nights, the murmured conversations with Heimdall, a god she couldn’t imagine cared very much for the words of mortals, the repetition of a promise. 

He waited, just as she watched, and built. 

Thor turns her then, his fingers sliding out of her with an aching ease. She pulls him close as her back presses into the mattress, her hands there between their hips to help guide his way. It’s been long enough, but she’s ready when he presses into her; there is only the slow stretch, the shivers peeling off of her limbs. Her thighs hitch over his hips and he gasps her name as he begins to move, slow and sweet. She digs her hands into the slope of his back and feels his muscles ripple under her touch. Her hair sticks to her throat, damp and tacky. His mouth settles near her ear and she is enveloped by him; he breathes her name through her hair, his hips picking up their rhythm, his chest brushing hers as they move together. She closes her eyes and lets sensation take over, for once. 

When she comes, it’s his name on her lips, easier than breathing, two of his fingers at her clit. She is boneless and soft as he follows with a groan, just at her throat. His hair clings to her shoulders, whorls at her breast. He is gentle as he slips from her, his hand on her thigh, rubbing slight circles into the skin. 

“ _Jesus_ ,” she breathes. 

“Not exactly,” he says, voice almost a growl. She feels the scrape of his beard against her collarbone. 

Laughing softly, she stretches and sighs, limbs loose and movements languid. “I’m just so fucking glad it worked,” she murmurs. 

Thor pushes the hair from her face, smiling slightly as he looks down on her. “You have worked very hard, Jane. You should rest.”

“And get arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D. asleep and naked? No thanks,” she says with a sigh, sitting up. “Ugh, I need a shower too.”

“You need to rest,” he protests, still stretched out. His feet bump right up against the headboard. “And I will let no harm come to you.”

“Shower first,” she says with a smile, still wobbly in the knees as she stands up. She grabs her discarded flannel and pulls it over her head. “You don’t - you don’t have to leave, do you?” she asks from the doorway into the bathroom. 

Thor, with all the Asgardian energy she remembers so well, is up and looking around the room, naked as the day he was born. “No, not yet,” he says, smiling slightly. 

“Okay,” she says with a dopey smile she can feel from cheek to cheek, and ducks into the bathroom. 

She still showers in record time, just in case. 

It’s later, when she feels clean again and is curled up in her bed with him spooned behind her, that she tips her head back to meet his eyes. 

“I didn’t know you had been here for weeks after what happened,” she says quietly. 

His hand, perched on her hip, tightens and settles. “Yes. They – Coulson told me you were safe. I had to be content with that,” he says, a trace of bitterness in his words. 

She turns onto her back, looking up at him. “How did you get back in the first place?” she asks, mostly curious from a scientific standpoint, but also because if he could get back before why didn’t he?

“Those who my brother allied with opened a portal, which I also used to follow him,” he says. His fingers play in her still-damp hair, spreading the curls over her shoulders. “It was not a process I could repeat.”

Humming, Jane settles back into the pillows. “I see,” she murmurs. 

Thor leans down and kisses her, soft and warm. “I would visit Heimdall every day,” he murmurs, his hand sliding over the curve of her breast to her belly. “And ask of you. He is the only one to see within all the worlds. He is fond of you.”

Cheeks flushing, she turns into the line of his body. “Yeah, well. I’m glad, I guess.”

Chuckling, he tucks her close to his chest, lying on his back. She presses her chin to his collarbone, watching his face shift and change. “They were all fond of you. Sif, and the Warriors Three. They thought you brave,” he says, stroking her hair. 

Her nose wrinkles. “Well, okay. I don’t know about that. But that’s nice of them.”

“You came back for me, in the face of great danger. I believe that is brave,” he says. “Besides the fact that you have carried on your research without a thought for the restrictions imposed on you by man or science.”

Jane exhales sharply and drags her fingers along the lines of his chest. _He is cut_ , she thinks absently, Darcy’s grin clear in her mind. She hasn’t thought of his near-death since it happened, really; so motivated by bringing him back from the immortal realm, she hadn’t thought of his brush with mortality. It opens up a can of worms she is nowhere near ready to deal with, so she bites her tongue. 

But truly, he understands her better than she realized. “I suppose that’s true,” she says at last. 

He smiles up at her, eyes bright and crinkling in the corners. “Give yourself more credit, Jane.”

Mouth curling, she leans in and kisses him lightly. She doesn’t want to stop, really. “So…” she trails off, her hand flat over his heart. “What’s next?”

Cupping her cheek, he gives her a little half smile. “I could not tell you. But I am here now. I will stay as long as duty allows me.”

“And then we’ll figure it out,” she says, leaning into his touch. 

“Indeed,” he says, serious and soft. 

She’ll take that for now, and tells him so. He laughs and kisses her again, pulls her in close and keeps his mouth near hers. Her hand flexes over his heart. They do not leave the room all night, and she can’t help but prefer it that way. 

The next morning, Darcy wears a shit-eating grin that matches Tony’s when Jane and Thor walk into the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. Thor just says good morning and begins to make eggs. Still half-asleep (he’s not a morning person), Bruce hands Jane the readouts from the test yesterday, which she takes gratefully and reads as she stands next to Thor near the stove. Thor’s hand cups her hip even as he scrambles eggs. 

It’s a perfect moment, even with Darcy and Tony giving them shit in the background. Jane wants it to last for however long it can. 

*


End file.
